The Democrats aimed at Roy Moore, but Bill Clinton was standing in their way.

So Bill Clinton is now a smoldering husk of humanity.

After Hillary Clinton’s presidential loss, it became both convenient and useful to discard her alleged sexual predator spouse — a man the media feted repeatedly last year as a halcyon of decency. Now, Bill could safely be relegated to the semen-stained ashbin of history.

And so Bill Clinton has become the Barry Bonds of politics: a once-celebrated superhero, now disgraced. This week, a New York Times columnist said she believed Juanita Broaddrick, who first accused Clinton of rape some 25 years ago; The Atlantic also ran a better think piece talking about Clinton’s status as a suspected predator.

Now, it’s the execrable Matt Yglesias at Vox.com, in a 2000-word essay about just why Clinton should have resigned from office in 1998.

Yglesias admits that at the time, he wanted Clinton to stay: he was “glad to see Clinton prevail and regarded the whole sordid matter as primarily the fault of congressional Republicans’ excessive scandal-mongering.” But, Yglesias now admits, “I think we got it wrong. … What we should have talked about was men abusing their social and economic power over younger and less powerful women.”

It was far from the most egregious case of workplace sexual misconduct in American history. But it was unusually high-profile, the facts were not in dispute, the perpetrator had a lot of nominal feminist ideological commitments, and political leaders who shared those commitments had the power to force him from office. Had he resigned in shame, we all might have made a collective cultural and political decision that a person caught leveraging power over women in inappropriate ways ought to be fired. Instead, we lost nearly two decades.

Yes, yes we did. Funny how Democrats are realizing that right about now. Say, how are they feeling about Bob Menendez resigning? Any word on that?

Ygelsias says that Republicans shouldn’t have bothered going after Clinton for perjury. Instead, they should have used the feminist line that Lewinsky had been cudgeled into her affair — they should have said that Clinton’s seduction of Lewinsky was “morally bankrupt and contributing, in a meaningful way, to a serious social problem that disadvantages millions of women throughout their lives.” Which, of course, wouldn’t have worked, since the Left at the time suggested that Monica was a slut who wanted Bill, not a victimized innocent pressured by the most powerful man on Earth. Had the Right suggested that Bill used his superior position to get Lewinsky to service him, the Left immediately would have called them sexist for depriving Lewinsky of “agency.” That’s the beautiful convenience of Leftist sexual morality: it’s utterly malleable to the political needs of the moment.

Now Yglesias is all about the feminist take on power relationships, however. He says:

Had Clinton resigned in disgrace under pressure from his own party, that would have sent a strong, and useful, chilling signal to powerful men throughout the country.

Instead, the ultimate disposition of the case — impunity for the man who did something wrong, embarrassment and disgrace for the woman who didn’t — only served to confirm women’s worst fears about coming forward.

Then Yglesias shows his hand: it’s easy to dump Clinton overboard 17 years after he left office. But that doesn’t mean that Democrats should dump Menendez overboard, it turns out. He writes that Menendez should hang on to his seat until Democrat Phil Murphy takes office. He then adds that had Clinton stepped down, Gore would have become president. No problem! So sexual harassment is bad, unless it means losing something politically.

Yglesias openly admits that now is a great time to destroy Bill precisely because it means nothing:

But now that Hillary is out of electoral politics and has emerged as a bigger draw and more potent political force than her husband, there’s no excuse for Democrats not to look back on these events with more objectivity. Fifty-something leaders of organizations shouldn’t be carrying on affairs with interns who work for them regardless of whether the affair is in some sense consensual.

And then these people wonder that so many Republicans are willing to back Roy Moore.

Yglesias admits that Democrats “blew it.” What he fails to acknowledge is that if given the same stakes today, they’d blow it again. And so, in all likelihood, would he.

Students Kate Shulenberger (left) and Sarah Goodman on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Graduate Student Council plan a “call your congressman” event on campus.

Chris Arnold/NPR

There are a lot of anxious graduate students at universities around the country right now.

That’s because to help pay for more than $1 trillion in tax cuts for U.S. corporations, the House Republican tax plan would raise taxes on grad students in a very big way. These students make very little money to begin with. And many would have to pay about half of their modest student stipends in taxes.

“The past week this is what I’ve been talking about with other graduate students and classmates. I think we’re all shocked,” says Tamar Oostrom. She’s in her third year of getting her Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She and her classmates have been crunching the numbers. “This bill would increase our tax by 300 or 400 percent. I think it’s absolutely crazy,” Oostrom says.

In exchange for helping to teach courses or working with professors on research projects, MIT gives students such as Oostrom a modest $30,000 stipend. And as part of the deal she also doesn’t pay tuition. The arrangement is typical for many students at MIT and other universities.

That tuition price tag at MIT is technically about $50,000, even though students like Oostrom don’t have to pay it. Under the tax plan proposed by House Republicans, these students would have to report that tuition forgiveness as income.

Ryan Hill, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at MIT, already pays taxes on his $30,000 stipend. But, he says, adding in the value of his free tuition, he’d have to pay taxes as if he made $80,000 a year. And that’s a massive difference for Hill and his wife, who works part time on top of caring for their new baby.

“I wish we didn’t have to stress about money as much as we already do,” Hill says. “It’s already been very hard to just emotionally get through this time of life because we have to be so frugal.”

The couple already gave up dental insurance to save money. And Hill says his wife sews clothes for their baby so they don’t have to buy clothes.

About 145,000 grad students received a tuition reduction in 2011-12, the American Council on Education says.

Hill and other MIT students say the tax proposal is ill-conceived. So do economists, who say it would discourage Americans from seeking advanced degrees at a time when the country badly needs a better educated workforce.

Kim Rueben, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said the plan wouldn’t harm just grad students. If young people opt out of graduate education, the damage would be felt throughout the economy.

“Dollar for dollar, this might be the most misguided part of the plan,” she says. “What you’re doing is increasing the cost of going to graduate school … and ignoring the fact that the government makes much more money if people have more education.”

So, Rueben says, the relatively small amount of money taken from grad students to pay for other cuts would stymie the country’s growth in the future.

Larry Lyon, vice provost and dean of Baylor University’s graduate school, was blunt. “I’ve been promoting graduate education for over 20 years,” he said, and the plan is “probably the most serious threat to doctoral education we have ever experienced.”

Other university administrators across the country appear to be just as appalled as students — the American Council on Education sent a letter to Congress decrying the plan. The letter was signed by over 30 academic organizations, including the Association of American Universities, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the American Psychological Association.

The provision exists only in the House tax bill, not the Senate version. Many graduate students are hoping that the proposal doesn’t end up seeing the light of day.

Grad Students Would Be Hit By Massive Tax Hike Under House GOP Plan

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Democrats stand for nothing these days, which means they fall for everything.

Congressional Dems have no legitimate reason to file articles of impeachment against President Trump, and yet they are dead set on making it happen.

Here are the details…

From Daily Caller:

A group of six Democratic House members introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday, claiming the president has violated federal law, the public trust and should be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors.

Democratic Reps. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Louis Gutierrez of Illinois, Al Green of Texas and Adriano Espaillat of New York introduced five articles of impeachment at a press conference at the Capitol Wednesday. The articles have two more co-sponsors: Reps. Marcia Fudge of Ohio and John Yarmuth of Kentucky.

Continued:

The congressmen list a number of charges against the president, including: obstruction of justice, a violation of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, a violation of the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, undermining the federal judiciary process and undermining the press.

The articles focus primarily on Trump’s handing of the termination of former FBI Director James Comey, and potential conflicts of interest with Trump’s businesses and properties while he’s served as president.

How does this make sense?

Aside from silly tweets, what has Trump done wrong?

The stock market is booming, while unemployment is at its lowest point in nearly two decades.

California progressive Maxine Waters recently lead an ‘impeach 45’ chant at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards, per Newsweek:

U.S. Representative Maxine Waters guided a crowd of powerful women, celebrities and other influencers in a raucous chant demanding the president’s impeachment Monday night in New York City.

Waters, a California Democrat leading the charge to remove Donald Trump from office, was wrapping up her remarks at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards when she began shouting into the microphone. As the audience gave her a standing ovation, she led a call-and-response chant, exclaiming “Impeach 45,” raising her arms and encouraging spectators to get louder.

Attendees quickly shared videos of the speech on social media. Glamour magazine named it one of the “biggest moments” of the ceremony.

Source

Country Music Awards hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood poked fun at President Trump during the 51st annual awards show on November 8 (video below).

The duo started the show wearing eclipse sunglasses, referring to the time Trump ditched a pair to look directly at the August solar eclipse, reports the Daily Mail.

Afterwards, the stars sang a rendition of Underwood’s hit 2005 song “Before He Cheats”, but re-written to mock Trump.

“Right now he’s probably in his PJs, watching cable news, reaching for his cell phone,” Paisley sung, before Underwood joined in with “It’s fun to watch it that’s for sure, ’til little “Rocket Man” starts a nuclear war, Maybe next time he’ll think before he tweets.”

The duo’s antics came despite a memo the Country Music Association [CMA] sent to the media prior to the show requesting avoiding covering “the Las Vegas tragedy, gun rights, political affiliations or topics of the like”, reports the Nashville Scene.

According to ABC News, Paisley quickly publicly condemned CMA’s memo. While the media was careful in their coverage, the hosts were clearly anything but.

The two warned they would pull off such jokes ahead of time despite CMA’s desire to make the show apolitical, stressing they weren’t making political statements.

“We’ve always said that we want to make fun of things that are funny,” Underwood said before the show. “It’s not about any political party or any person or any anything. It’s just about making fun of things that are funny.”

Nevertheless, their jokes still offended many. Some were so upset, they even turned off the show in protest.

“Well even the #cmaawards has to open up by mocking the President.” wrote one person on Twitter. “Time to find something else to watch that won’t involve politics.”

“So very disappointing that the CMAs brought politics to the show.” added another under the Daily Mail’s comments section. “I won’t watch again, nor support you with my money.”

However, others defended the hosts.

“Mocking?” shot back somebody else. “Hardly. It was all in fun and it was funny, unlike the nonsense you see out of the idiots in Hollywood. There was nothing mean spirited about it.”

“Suddenly I like country music especially Brad and Carrie.” exclaimed one.. “You know things are bad for the Orange buffoon when country stars start hating on him. Must say I did not see this coming!”

“Happy to see Country Music artist speaking out about this vile, atrocious administration!” commented another. Country music fans are the ones hurt the most by these awful policies handed out by orangina! Impeachment coming soon!”

Watch out Venus, there’s a new two-face in town! This is Quimera, a gorgeous gata from Argentina whose unusual features are taking the internet by storm.

Quimera may be what’s known as a Genetic chimera, a rare natural occurrence whereby an individual is made up of cells from at least two different original eggs. They fuse together to become a single organism, whose DNA is from two completely different individuals.

However she may be also be a mosaic, much more common in felines, which is only one individual egg that just happens to have different active genetic expressions in its cells. Only DNA testing would give the answer.

Either way, she’s just gorgeous! Her blue eye especially appears like some kind of precious stone, bright and beautiful and an utter contrast to her other eye. The colour split continues down her chest to her front legs, with the sides reversed.

Quimera has built up quite a following on Instagram, which is updated regularly as she goes about her kitty life, unaware of her fame and unique appeal to cat lovers around the world. Check her out!

This is Quimera, a gorgeous gata from Argentina whose unusual features are taking the internet by storm

Quimera may be what’s known as a Genetic chimera, a rare natural occurrence

Her blue eye looks like a precious stone, bright and beautiful and an utter contrast to her other eye

The colour split continues down her chest to her front legs, with the sides reversed

Making her unique and absolutely gorgeous!

Quimera has built up quite a following on Instagram, with over 36,000 followers

Which gets updated regularly as she goes about her kitty life

Being completely unaware of her fame and unique appeal to cat lovers around the world!

Source

If you read Harry Potter you are a better human being than those who don’t, according to science.

A new paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology claims ‘reading the Harry Potter series significantly improved young peoples’ perception of stigmatised groups like immigrants, homosexuals or refugees’ writes .

It seems like all those tweets that JK Rowling correlates with moments in the wizarding franchise actually hold some weight.

Personally speaking, I quit the books after the Prisoner of Azkaban... Now I think about it, I do stigmatise immigrants, homosexuals, and refugees a lot. Guilty!

Getty

I suppose when you think about the term ‘Mudblood’ used for non-magic folk, it can be traced to pretty much any other racially discriminatory slang.

If kids reading the Harry Potter books realise it’s wrong when Draco Malfoy picks on people who have no say in who they are fundamentally, then it makes sense that they grow up to be pretty open-minded adults.

There are parrellels in the book with famous quotes from history.

Warner Bros.

For example, when Albus Dumbledore slates the Minister of Magic, he says:

You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognise that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!

It echoes a statement made by Martin Luther King, Jr during his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Warner Bros.

Similarly, the Pacific Standard notes of the study:

Bigotry, the researchers note, is a continuing theme in the series of phenomenally popular young-adult novels.

Voldemort, who represents pure evil, makes arguments that have ‘rather obvious’ parallels with Nazism, they write, noting that he believes all power should reside in ‘pure-blood’ witches and wizards, as opposed to those born of one magical parent and one non-magical ‘Muggle.’

In addition, Harry and his friends interact with various sub-human species such as elves and goblins, who regularly complain about being forced into subservient roles, not unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. Harry ‘tries to understand them and appreciate their difficulties.

Getty

Answering a fan’s question on the topic last year, JK Rowling said:

The expressions ‘pure-blood’, ‘half-blood’ and ‘muggle-born’ have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter and express their originators’ prejudices.

As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a muggle-born [wizard] is as bad as a muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only half-wizard because of his mother’s grandparents.

If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted ‘Aryan’ or ‘Jewish’ blood.

I saw one in the Holocaust Museum in Washington when I had already devised the ‘pure-blood’, ‘half-blood’ and ‘muggle-born’ definitions and was chilled to see that the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters.

A single Jewish grandparent ‘polluted’ the blood, according to their propaganda.

So there we have it. If you’re mad for Potter you’re probably not a Nazi. And they say children’s books are stupid!